Can I get into a good college even though my freshman and sophomore year grades weren't good?

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1

Freshman year I had A’s,Bc’s, and C’s, and B’s and C’s sophomore year, but during those years I had really bad depression, anxiety and ADD which wasn’t diagnosed until end of sophomore year because my parents were convinced nothing was wrong with me and that mental illnesses were just an excuse. Also you couldn’t take AP’s freshman year because you’d need to complete prerequisites that weren’t available to us before.

Sophomore year you could only take AP Euro (which I took and I got a B in and a 4 on the AP test) unless you took college classes which I didn’t know about. That I took a community college class, Intro to Biology which I got an A in.

Junior year I took 1 AP (I didn’t make prerequisite for anything else since freshman and sophomore year I wasn’t sure what i wanted to do so I took classes that weren’t prerequisites for the classes I wanted to take junior year), 2 honors, 2 college courses (Intro to Psychology and Biological Psychology) and I got all A’s. I got a 5 on the test for AP US History.

I’m about to be a senior and I’m currently taking Lifespan Psychological Development at CC and I’m about to take 7 AP classes senior year. I’m diagnosed and I take medication for depression, social anxiety and ADD. I can code in 3 languages, I play the piano, I do contemporary dance and take ballet which is required with contemporary dance, and I’m very interested and take classes for photography, hyper-realistic portrait drawings, and oil painting.

At my school there aren’t a ton of options for AP classes in general, and no one I knew took AP classes freshman year, or more than AP Euro sophomore year, including any honors classes. I’m not sure if I can get into a really good college (Uc Santa Barbara is my dream school with University of Southern California a close second) since sophomore and junior years are the most critical in an application and I didn’t have a lot of AP classes junior year or amazing grades sophomore year. I also stopped playing lacrosse junior year because of CC classes and my anxiety was really bad sophomore year and it estranged me from most of my teammates.

2

UC’s only use 10-11th grades for their GPA calculation. So what is your UC GPA (capped weighted) for UCSB?

https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

For USC, your unweighted GPA will be important (9-11th grades) and they also consider Mid-year Senior grades. So what is your UW GPA as of now?

What about test scores? Letters of recommendation for USC?

All these items along with HS course rigor and essays will contribute to your chances so you need the whole package to be a competitive applicant. You can address your health issues in one of your essays, but be careful on how you approach the depression and anxiety (red flags to admissions).

Repost with your GPA’s, test scores, intended major and you should get some feedback.

I also think that even if you have your health issues under control, taking 7 AP classes Senior year is a recipe for disaster. Remember, all college acceptances are provisional so you get a D or F in any of these classes, you could be rescinded. I would consider maybe 4 maximum Senior year. College applications take up a lot of time Senior year.

3

Schedule for senior year
AP Language
AP Calculus (I’ve always been good at math, even with the mental illnesses)
AP Chemistry
AP Economics
AP Studio Art Drawing and Painting (good at both, i don’t know if the teacher will make us do preselected projects)
AP Studio Art Photography (done photography for a few years and I know amateur photographers that are willing to help me if necessary)
AP Computer Programming (my dad’s a computer engineer, if I’m having trouble he can help out)

and it says my weighted capped grade is 4.0

4

1500 was my SAT score out of 1600 and I want to go into Psychiatry. My unweighted gpa unfortunately, is only a 3.63

5

My ACT score was a 35